


(Never Have I Seen) Such Gallantry

by This_Bloody_Cat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drug Use, Ghosts, HP: Epilogue Compliant, Harry Potter Next Generation, Haunted Houses, Homophobic Language, Infidelity, M/M, Mentions of Sex, Minor Character Death, Next Generation, Next-Gen, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 22:01:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13820316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/This_Bloody_Cat/pseuds/This_Bloody_Cat
Summary: “It’s not a fairy tale,” Scorpius said, “it’s the story of my life.”





	(Never Have I Seen) Such Gallantry

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer:** Harry Potter is owned by J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers. No copyright infringement intended.
> 
> Betaed by iwao.

**gallantry:** nobility of spirit or action; courage. 

 

*** *** ***

 

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, a prince was born. Only, such faraway land was a Wiltshire manor house and such prince, though a pure-blood, was certainly no prince. And, to be honest, Scorpius could never quite get why being a pure-blood rated somehow higher in his family. Especially since the way he saw it Muggle-born witches or wizards worked just as fine as pure-blood ones.

He lived times of joy and sadness. Most things in his life came from his parents’  wealth and privilege, and occasionally from the massive neglect everyone held towards his own thoughts and opinions. Then again, it’s not like it mattered. Though it was within the list of reasons Scorpius often dreamt when he was small, of the lovely, charming (and hopefully well-positioned) princess he would one day (be forced to) wed. Actually, it was the main reason. And more than a dream, well, it seemed more like a nightmare.

Luckily though, the princess we’re talking about here wasn’t exactly a princess, and Scorpius wasn’t exactly forced to marry her. No, his father’s decision seemed to lean the opposite way.

 

*** *** ***

 

Albus asked him out near the end of fifth year, three weeks before their summer holidays began. It was rather d eviating from what Scorpius would consider ‘ordinary life’, as in, the things one does everyday and such. In fact, the whole thing was odd. Despite Scorpius having confessed to Al a few months before then that he may be having Massive Doubts about his own heterosexuality. 

(To be honest, Scorpius did kind of say, “I think I’m might be gay,” and, “Seriously, girls do nothing down there,” only without the ‘kind of’ bit because that was _ literally what he said _ . But anyway. Back then, he had no clue dating him was what Al had in mind. Not even by far.)

Then again, Scorpius wasn’t exactly fabulous at reading other people’s minds, so... you know, mistakes happen, and Al did ask him out near the end of fifth year.  That night, Al walked Scorpius to the lakeside, and Scorpius sat down on a large rock behind him, contemplating the dark still water below them. It bloomed from time to time with a million bubbles from ought deep, intertwining with each other like a huge rattlesnake of air. 

He’d always wondered what did that. 

He was, in fact, a bit scared of water, especially since he’d seen the ghost back at the Manor; definitely too scared to sit anywhere nearer the lake, even if Al kept telling him nothing else lived down there other than the Giant Squid — which Al had seen from time to time through the gallery of windows lining up Hogwarts’ walls down in the basement. Well, not the whole squid, just bit and pieces and its tentacles. Al kept telling him they sometimes stuck to the glass. Scorpius had never really seen them himself, possibly because his visits to the basement were rather scarce back then, though he did remember asking Al one day, “Doesn’t it scare you, living below water?” 

Albus had rolled his eyes and snapped, “Does it ever scare you to live high up above the ground?” and Scorpius decided to forgo answering, mostly because he guessed his own question might have been just as pointless as the one Al asked. Of course it should be scary given that ground could break and then you’d fall through it and yadda yadda yadda, but then, that didn’t usually happen, just as castles didn’t usually fall down all over the place, and windows didn’t usually break out of nowhere. Unless they were cracked. But the ones on the basement weren’t so, there you go.

On that evening however, before asking Scorpius out, Al stood by the lake with him for, like, bloody  _ ages _ , skipping pebbles across the surface of the lake. They talked and talked until the falling night turned pebbles invisible past two skips. To be completely honest, it did occur to Scorpius that Al might be waiting for something fascinating to happen, for a unicorn to pop out of the lake all of a sudden or something like that. He was, coincidentally, going through that thought again — unicorns rarely live in lakes, you see — when Albus decided to kneel in front of him. Just as Scorpius pondered the meaning of such an action, Al took a deep breath in and asked, “Would you date me?”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Er, go out with me.” Al bit down on his lip, his eyes sliding sideways. Scorpius followed their gaze, but there was nothing but grass there — grass and, woebegone, no unicorns at all! Wait, was this for real? Was Al really... 

“I mean, from now on, and... only if you’d like to?” Al finished.

Holy fuck. He was.

Later, Scorpius thought that that one deep breath might have been Al’s attempt to come up with the courage to say what he’d gone there to say, and he kept thinking about that as he answered the riddle to his common room and as he climbed through the tight spiral staircase. He was still thinking of that when he accidentally walked all through Rowena’s nightdress, which left his own feet feeling tingly and flippantly frozen on his way to bed. 

Then again, if Scorpius had been looking where he walked instead of pondering things past, he might not have stepped all over a ghost’s nightwear. Not that any of that mattered, since Scorpius, half-panicked, answered, “Sure. Let’s,” and to this day he’s still not sure what on Earth brought that on. Friends are friends, good friends are good friends, but there’s certainly a huge gap between being great friends and dating. 

(Scorpius still thinks today that Albus might have been right about him. It’s not like he’s  _ certain _ . One can never be certain of these things: feelings are a roller coaster, up and down all the time, never sticking in one place. But perhaps what Al saw on him that day was true, perhaps he’d needed a reason to forgo his father’s wishes. Perhaps he’d needed a real reason to stand up for himself and tell everyone else to go to hell, and please  _ stay there _ because Scorpius could definitely do  _ without _ . Even if the reason he chose to follow was a bit shaky. Mostly because, long term, it’d get them nowhere. And, perhaps, because Al might end up getting a bit hurt. Or a lot.)

But the thing is, all Scorpius could think back then even as his lips formed ‘Sure. Let’s,’ was that in three weeks they’d both leave home. Everything else in the world paled and crumbled when compared to  _ yet another month _ in the Manor, back to lurking around large hallways in the low angles of evening light that lasted forever and ever, back to avoiding all those portraits who pretended to know who he was but didn’t. And then there was grandfather’s portrait, who perhaps knew way too much. 

He’d heard them both talking, grandfather and father, back when mum was still around. 

Father, full of joy, had taken Scorpius to the garden the day before. They’d both picked up roses up for her. “Red and white,” father said, “they are her favourite colours,” and Scorpius joked, “Even though she’s a Slytherin,” because back then he didn’t know he’d never make the cut to be placed there himself. They came back with a gargantuan bouquet. Father charmed the spikes flat so they wouldn’t poke Scorpius’ fingers, and Mother wore a few around her head during dinner. The rest ended up in a large vase on their sitting room. 

Scorpius caught grandmother watching his parents from behind the door. There was a slight twitch upwards to her mouth as she saw him looking, then she winked at him and silenced him, one pale finger on her lips. 

Later, when they called a house-elf to put Scorpius to bed, he saw his parents from the window to his bedroom — both of them, down on the garden, laying in the ground beneath the old oak tree. The oak’s long twirling branches grasping each other in an embrace, just as father’s hand clutched mum’s into his chest. As if she were the one reason he kept living for.

Those had been happier times. For Scorpius, at least.

The following day, he heard voices behind  the heavy door down by the entrance hall. Father’s voice and... someone else’s.  Luckily — or perhaps unluckily, for when he thinks about it now he’d rather not have met that particular portrait — the door wasn’t closed. Scorpius  gingerly pushed it open so it wouldn’t creak, he pushed it open enough that he could  peep his head in and watched a portrait of an older man, with long straight blond hair, said to father, “I presume that ill-mannered brat, the one you took yesterday for a walk out on Narcissa’s garden, is your son.” 

“He is.”

Father’s back was turned to Scorpius. However, when Scorpius looked up, the portrait was staring right at him. “Somehow,” it said slowly, his eyes never leaving Scorpius’, “I have certain doubts about his inheritance. I keep wondering if he truly is your child. Perhaps someone else got there first...” 

Father’s hands clenched into fists around the scarf he’d been wearing outside. They clenched into fists behind his back, where the portrait couldn’t see them. Scorpius wasn’t exactly shocked since he himself found the painting a bit frightening. It looked so...  _ real _ .

“My wife wouldn’t—couldn’t...” 

“No, of course not,” the portrait told father, one eyebrow lifted and  an evil smile drawn on his face . “All prim and proper your wife, is she not? Despite having split her legs wide open for at least one of your dearest friends before your engagement.”

“Shut up,” father said, quietly. 

“She probably would have done it again if you hadn’t—” 

“Shut the hell up,” father spat. “I swear I’ll remove every painting from this house so you have no place left to pester me with your stupid comments.” Scorpius had never heard him sound like that. The tone father used right then made Scorpius’ neck hair stand on end. “I only put up with you for her, because she loves you, Merlin knows why.” 

Scorpius stood frozen in place, his muscles unable to move. When his father began to turn towards the door, he ran, and kept running and running until their voices faded away, as he turned corner after corner till he was running through corridors he’d never even seen before. 

Father never asked him about that day. Scorpius’ isn’t sure if he’d been seen or not — by father, since the painting on the other side of the room did get to stare well enough. Just as he’s not sure whom, exactly, father was talking about. What Scorpius is sure though, is that that one time was the first time he’d actually heard father curse. 

It sort of marked the start of something. Things never got better. Sometimes, Scorpius thought the manor might be haunted — everything, every bloody thing that happened there kept just getting worse and worse. Mother passed away upon months lying in bed. “A miscarriage,” grandmother told him. Father didn’t say a word. He stood there, shocked pale, gazing down a his own hands. 

They were covered in blood. 

As the house-elves pulled Scorpius out of his parent’s room he glanced back at his mum: a dead body on pale sheets, covered in blood stains. Her eyes were still open, glancing nowhere. There were shiny bits of crystal all over her dress. 

Slowly, Scorpius looked up. 

The baroque candelabrum they brought back from Germany wasn’t there; instead, there was a giant fissure on the ceiling exactly where it had hung, and that was... 

He shook his head and looked again. 

The fissure was gone. The candelabrum was right there, in plain sight. 

( _ Temporary madness _ , he’d think later.  _ Haunted houses are for Muggle films _ , he’d think later.)

 

*** *** ***

 

He grew up handsome and talented and smart beyond belief, and lived a truly pampered lifestyle given everything he’d need. Nothing unpleasant touched him till the time he left for school, though sadly, events at home weren’t rough but fairly uncool. 

 

*** *** ***

 

Over the years, his father changed, but so did Scorpius after all. Yet the paintings stayed, and grandfather kept being the same obnoxious bum he’d been back then. 

Scorpius went back home during the first short break students had after the  start-of-term  banquet — or what his father called ‘home’, though Scorpius preferred to call it ‘mas sive loneliness along with complete absence of pleasant distractions .’  

He was extremely unsurprised when grandfather’s portrait sneered at him. 

“The one Malfoy to avoid Slytherin,” he’d say every time he caught sight of Scorpius, and kept moving from portrait to painting to yet again another portrait or painting just to make sure he’d never lose him. He scoffed when Scorpius walked by, “I do wonder how hard you begged for the Sorting Hat to put you elsewhere,” and whenever he returned from the garden, “Perhaps you are not a Malfoy after all.” 

Honestly, that last one put Scorpius on edge. Still, grandfather kept saying it until, once, Scorpius yelled back, “I am!” 

Grandfather simply raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. 

“I am a Malfoy,” Scorpius told him, his own voice coming out as a low hissing noise. 

“Are you?” Lucius said, but the way he said it meant _And does that make you proud?_ Scorpius didn’t answer. He was proud of many things, but being a Malfoy surely wasn’t on that list. Not with the things people said about them. Not with the way most of his schoolmates treated him.

Upon his silence, however, grandfather went on, “Be careful,” he said darkly, “for a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” The words he used bothered Scorpius back then, though he wasn’t sure why. 

Apprehensive — and partly because he truly hated grandfather — he began sidestepping paintings from then on. He removed the ones in his room, threw a rag over those in places his father avoided: the old living room, the front part of the prison cells down on the basement, the room that used to be his parents bedroom when they—when mum was still there. It was around then that Scorpius started to pass his free time — which was, sadly, most of it — reading books he’d stolen for their library in a secluded corner of their garden. One the peacocks couldn’t get to — bloody annoying birds, they kept trying to poke his fingers. 

His conversation partners turned out to be house-elves, his grandmother and, occasionally, his own reflection. He eluded father just as father seemed to elude him, locking himself up on his office when he wasn't needed elsewhere. 

But then, during third year, grandmother passed away. “An attack,” people mumbled, “on their home, right out of nowhere.”  McGonagall gave him  four free days — a week, she insisted, but Scorpius could do with less. It wasn’t because he didn’t regret her death. That — grandmother’s passing away — was really quite sad. She’d always been so kind to him. And not only because it meant one less member on the list of beings who’d dare share their free time by talking to him within the manor, but mostly because the manor itself gave him the creeps under his skin. 

He did go back for her funeral. Al’s father was there, too, in his Auror robes. He took Scorpius apart after the coffin had been buried. “You father...”

Scorpius tightly said, “He’s fine.”

“He doesn’t look fine to me.”

“That’s just...” Scorpius paused, shaking his head. “He’s just grieving.”

“Well, if you want to come over for a few days, I’m sure...”

Scorpius broke in, “I’ll be all right.”  

“You will be, one day, perhaps.” Al’s father smiled, but something looked wrong about that gesture. The way he did it, it looked almost  _ sad _ . “You were always a bit of an introvert, weren’t you?”

“Listening is more fun.” It wasn’t, really, but it was what Scorpius was brought up to do. Listening to people’s opinions even when they didn’t match his own; nod along, stay seated, do not snap at them when they say something wrong because ‘That’s not what Malfoys do’ and ‘We’re trying to change that.’

“All right, then...” He patted Scorpius’ shoulder, twice. “... let me know if you change your mind. You could come over, I— _ we _ wouldn’t mind.”

Scorpius thought about it — really, he did. But he kept recalling the things James said to him at school, the things Rose said... Well, they didn’t exactly push him to say ‘yes’, so he didn’t. Though, in truth, father wasn’t pushing in that direction either, or in any direction, since he didn’t say a word to Scorpius while he was there. Not that day, not the the day after either. 

Then again, lately he never did. 

Most of father’s days were spent tumbling around drunk, muttering to himself over things Scorpius couldn’t catch, even if he occasionally heard them. Or at least most of his talking didn’t seem to be directed to Scorpius. Or to anyone at all, except for, occasionally,  _ grandfather’s _ bloody  _ portrait _ . 

Scorpius caught him several times talking to Lucius in the sitting room. “You did this, you bastard! You—” father would point at the portrait with such rage, his fingers trembling from fury, from inebriation, from Merlin knows what demented ramblings of an insane mind that were beyond Scorpius’ comprehension, “—started this whole mess by marrying her and now she’s...” Then he’d sigh, taking a step back from the painting. “... she’s not here anymore.” 

As usual, father kept to his routines. It had been a few years, however, since his routines included Scorpius. 

(Later on, however, he’d think father might have been right. Ruining the lives of others is never as pleasant as they paint it, even if you do it to preserve your own the longest you possibly can. But that’s how curses work, isn’t it? Most people are rather selfish when their own death hangs on their choices.)

 

*** *** ***

 

Scorpius first saw the ghost back at the manor after grandmother’s death. 

He went back there for summer holidays. The ghost looked so much like Narcissa from afar, standing there tall and proud by the verge of the forest, where a shallow runnel passed. Grandmother always looked like that when she took him out for a walk along the garden, tall and proud. She often complained Scorpius slumped. He didn’t, really, at least not on purpose, but he was used to being ignored, and sometimes not being seen was better. He was rather short for his age anyway, and took much more after mother than... than father.

He really thought the ghost might be her, at first. As he approached her, he noticed the robes the ghost wore were far older than those grandmother wore. She was wearing a corset too, which grandmother never did; her dresses’ neck was vintage lace, trim edging the  embellished crochet  borders on her skin. It looked almost like Victorian clothing. Like something they’d wear back when the Great Famine took Ireland and the Crimean War was on its rush.

“Good evening,” she told him. She looked much younger that Narcissa was when she died. “You must be the youngest Malfoy.”

Scorpius nodded. “I’m guessing you must have been one, at some point.”

She chuckled. “Oh, I was never one. No, it was only by marriage that I became part of your family. A marriage I didn’t want.” Her eyebrows bent down in a show of displeasure. “But it was how these things worked back then, for even if father’s wishes made me unfortunate, I was meant to follow them and that I did.”

Scorpius shrugged. “Well, in that sense they haven’t changed much. That’s what’s expected of me as well.”

“I suppose time rarely changes family’s opinions.”

“Perhaps,” Scorpius said while he thought,  _ But I’ve changed, I’m different, I’m not like him _ . “I never saw you before.”

“I don’t usually come here,” the ghost said.

“What brought you here today?”

“I wanted to have a look at what killed me.”

“You... you know what killed you?”

“Oh, it’s hard to ignore.” The ghost pointed at the river. Her hand was wet. One tiny droplet fell from the tip of her nail  to the waxen ground water broke through. It shimmered; it did not splatter, it did not run, it stayed whole refracting the last rays of sunlight that poured in through the trees above.

“It’s not deep enough to drown,” Scorpius pointed out, “not here. Perhaps further dow—”

“It’s really quite shallow, isn’t it?” the ghost broke in. “It was too, back then. But when roots hold you down, you do end up drowning.”

Scorpius took a step back. Suddenly the water there didn’t seem so safe anymore.

“It’s within the manor’s property,” the ghost told him, “within its magic property.” She turned to face Scorpius.  Her cheeks were sunken in, her eyes looked deranged. It was like she was looking through him when she said, “So long as one stays within, the manor will do what it wants, what it was cursed to do.” 

“What was it cursed to do?”

The ghost smiled.

“ _ What _ was it? What is the house cursed to do?”

“Oh, you should ask her,” the ghost told him. “The Mudblood. I’m sure she’d be more than pleased to tell you exactly where my husband went wrong, how exactly he brought this curse on us,” and then it vanished into thin air.

 

*** *** ***

 

For eight months after Albus asked him out, Scorpius kept picturing how things would go if he confessed to Albus that he’d never actually loved him, that he didn’t even back then when he said ‘sure, let’s’ down by the lake. He kept imagining what Albus would do. Perhaps lash out at him, or spread rumours, perhaps... perhaps avoid him, like father did,  _ kept doing _ . 

It was never the right time. And whenever it was, his own mind pushed him back.

Albus was always busy, always doing something or other: his sister was sick or the Slytherin team was playing that afternoon, he spent most days training for Quidditch, or even studying for exams, and whenever he found time for Scorpius, he was far too sweet, too charming, and Scorpius kept feeling as if he should  _ say  _ something to prevent Albus from heading somewhere that had no way out other than a break up they’d both regret. But every time he was on the verge of talking, he kept recalling the way Al’s eyes glittered when he said ‘sure, let’s’. The way his lips turned up afterwards. He kept recalling Al’s hands, warm and tender around his waist, the way Al’s tongue had fought his, wet and clumsy and so passionate in its selfish desire to control the kiss — a game, Scorpius admitted, he’d conceded, and he’d likely do it again. 

It was those things made Scorpius’ mouth snap closed, as if pulled shut by his conscience picturing the glitter fading in Al’s eyes. His whole world burned down to that: to glitter fading, to the weakest link, to nothing. 

So Scorpius stayed, Albus went nowhere. Eventually, Scorpius stopped thinking, or at least stopped thinking about that, but he wasn’t blind as a bat: in time, glitter did fade from the way Al looked at him, and Scorpius couldn’t help noticing it, day after day. 

Still, he kept quiet. 

Some questions are better unanswered, especially when one already knows the answer.

 

*** *** ***

 

When it eventually happened, way before he was of age, the princess that he met actually turned out to be a bloke. Choices upon choices, exile woke and peeked his way, and  _ happily ever after _ turned to a fairytale from hell, for it was when things gone wrong began to go Very Wrong, and our poor not-quite-a-prince kept wondering the ‘why’ behind his choice.

 

*** *** ***

 

Scorpius left the Manor four days after taking his N.E.W.T.s after one short yet intense conversation with his father. 

“I’m gay,” Scorpius said. His father said nothing, which was not at all odd since he’d been ignoring Scorpius ever since the day mum passed away. Scorpius sat back on his trunk, took a deep breath and repeated, louder, “I'm gay.”

Father looked up from the Prophet, with brief to no interest in his son’s words. “You are what I tell you to be.”

“I'm dating Albus Potter,” Scorpius growled through clenched teeth while his father simply found  the business section in the Prophet. “ I'm moving into his house today.”

Father folded down the paper, placing it next to his tea mug. “ I am not visually impaired,” he said, tiny wrinkles appearing at the corners of his mouth, “I did notice the trunk behind you. I do know who you call—” his mouth turned into a hard sneer as he said, “—friends.” 

“And you have nothing else to say?”

“You are a Malfoy, and you will do as you are told.”

There’s a brief twitch in Scorpius’ left temple, his hands clench uselessly at his sides. “I won't.”  _ I’m not your puppet. I’m not yours to do as you wish. _

“You will. Just as I did.” 

“I’m not you,” Scorpius spat. “I make my own choices.”

“That you do,” father said, sighing, “but you don’t get to make this one, on this one you’re trapped.”

Scorpius shrank his trunk.  “We’ll see,” he said , and then shoved the trunk into his back pocket and walked out of the room. Outside, he pressed the back of his head against the wall. 

“You’ll have to come back,” father yelled, “at least for my funeral.”

Scorpius fingered his temples. 

He briefly pondered telling father how he’d felt these past few years. All the pain and frustration at being ignored by everyone else and  _ father too _ , at having to listen to his schoolmates as they made fun of him, of his family, and having to listen to his grandfather who mocked him because he could, and father — his own father — never doing anything about it after mum died, other than getting massively drunk and not giving a damn about Scorpius all this time. At being expected to marry a woman he didn’t love and produce one male child for the family to go on, as his father wanted, only to live in a haunted house cursed over something mysterious some old time relative had done, a house who’d eventually kill  _ him and his father _ anyway, all over some reason no one  _ knew _ .

Scorpius closed his eyes and whispered, “Goodbye, father.”


End file.
